Players are not covering the distances of old – they are not being lazy but adapting to demands of an arduous campaign
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here is nothing English football admires more than honest endeavour, which is perhaps a consequence of the league’s origins in the industrial cities of the north and Midlands. “He put in a shift.” “She did her job.” “He gave his all.” The language of football is the language of the pit or the factory floor.
All top-level players these days are supremely skilled, but still we demand that they be exhausted by the final whistle, legs leaden with effort, hair soaked with sweat. Which was why it seemed to cause such consternation when Alan Shearer mentioned on Match of the Day last Saturday that Chelsea have run less than their opponents in every Premier League game they have played this season.
The accusation immediately was that Chelsea’s players are shirkers, that they don’t care enough, that they have neither the requisite passion nor pride. And there may be an element of truth to that. Many Liverpool fans, similarly, have been upset to learn that their players run the third least in the Premier League: only Chelsea and Nottingham Forest run less.
